Week 64 - Lodz

From Lodz to the Western edge of the Mission to serve in Szczecin - 4 hr 20 min by car

Szczecin is on the river Odra, and is a major port even though it is more than 40 miles from the sea. Linked to Berlin by the Odra river and canals. This city suffered severely during WWII and post-war restoration has been confined to its more important buildings.

Goodbye, Lodz!

Week 63 - Lodz

Hello all!

     How are things going for you all?  Hope they are going well and that you all had an awesome holiday season.  Our holidays were pretty awesome.  We did a lot of tracting, which was fun.  Christmas Eve and Christmas day were good, nothing too out of the ordinary, just tracting and stuff.  We did watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional on Christmas Eve, and that was great.  New Year's Eve was pretty cool too.  There are these little firework things called Cherry Bombs (they're illegal in the States) that just about everyone had here, and they sound like bombs when they go off.  So that was pretty cool hearing those about every 30 seconds for the whole day.  Then midnight was pretty crazy.  Polish people go way hard for the New Year.  There were just so many fireworks, it was so loud.  They make the Fourth of July look like a small thing haha.  Then on New Year's day, the streets were pretty much empty, everyone must have been hungover or something.  That was pretty cool.  But yea.  As far as meetings go, we had two meetings with our investigator O., and those went well.  We're focusing on chapters from the Book of Mormon, and that's going pretty well.  We've talked about faith this last week and this week, we're having O. read 3 Nephi 27.  We're excited for that.  We'll see how it goes.  This is also the last week of the transfer, so we're anticipating transfer calls this Saturday in advance of transfers next week.  We'll see what happens.  But yea.  We're looking forward to this week, we'll make it another great week here in Poland.  Hope everything goes well for you all too!  Have an awesome week!

-Elder Hadfield

Week 62 - Lodz

Our Christmas Skype call with Jake was wonderful! He is happy in his service, and had a great Christmas day -- tracting, a district get-together, and other regular missionary work. His only sadness is how fast the time is going. That's his new Christmas gift sweater from home, and he was eating mom's homemade caramels while we talked. We're so glad he got his gifts from home in time!

Week 61 - Lodz

Hello there everyone!

     Surprise, it's me!  We have p-day today because Monday is obviously Christmas, so all of the stores and stuff where we do shopping will be closed.  So yea.  This week was good.  We had zone conference in Warsaw on Wednesday, and that was good.  President and Sister Turek both talked about the Atonement, and we talked specifically about the enabling power of Jesus Christ.  It was really solid.  We also had a lesson with our less-active T. yesterday, and we read Mosiah 5 with him.  That went really well.  He really liked that chapter.  We talked about conversion and what it means to be converted.  He'll be at church tomorrow, so we're pretty excited for that.  And we also have a meeting with O. tonight.  We are planning on talking about Alma 32, so we'll see how it goes.  We think it will be good.  And yea, that's been our week.  We're excited for the next few days to see how they go.  For my spiritual thought this week, I'd like to share the words of Isaiah:

6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, The 
Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.  (2 Nephi 19:6)

At this time of year, we focus on Christ, His birth, life, and most of all, His atonement and resurrection for us.  I am so grateful for His selflessness, that through Him I can improve and receive help in my life.  I know that as we learn of Him and strive to be like Him through obedience, we can come to know Him and He will never leave us alone.  "God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son" (The Living Christ).  May we remember Him at this time of year and always.  Merry Christmas!

-Elder Hadfield

Week 60 - Lodz

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

     Hope everything is going well for you all, wherever you are!  Life is good over here.  It's pretty crazy that we only have one more week until Christmas, it's come up fast.  But yea, this past week was a good one.  We had a meeting with T. for the first time in a couple weeks because he was on vacation, and that was good.  We also had one with our investigator O. on Sunday, and that went well as well.  We had him read Jacob 4 before the meeting, and then we talked about his progression and stuff.  It's amazing to hear him tell the story of how far he's come to this point since he met the missionaries like a year and a half ago.  We're going to try helping him simplify things and continue having him read from the Book of Mormon and see how things go.  My spiritual thought for this week is a short one, it comes from where I'm reading in the Book of Mormon recently.  It's 2 Nephi 2:25 - 

25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

We came to this earth as a result of the Fall of Adam, and we came to this earth in order that we could experience happiness.  What a great thing to know that even if things are hard in this world, even if things don't always work out the way we want them to, we can be happy through our knowledge of the Savior and our knowledge of God's plan for us.  Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Hadfield

Week 59 - Lodz

Hey everyone!

     This week was a good one.  It's been quick, as they usually are.  We went to a castle fairly far away for p-day today, so I don't have a ton of time, but we'll see how this goes.  We were surprised by a visit from President Turek at district meeting this week, and that was pretty sweet. He brought some packages including one for me from home.  So we got the apartment all decorated up, so it looks pretty lit! We had a lesson with O. on Thursday, and that went pretty well.  We're starting to base our meetings off of the Book of Mormon and reading from it, and we're hoping that it will help him out.  We're planning on going over Jacob 4 with him next week, and we're excited to see how that goes.  

The other elders are currently working with someone from English class, and this guy is pretty awesome, we all think he's pretty sick.  Well in the middle of English last Monday, we're talking about Stevie Wonder for some reason, and this guy asks, "Have you ever seen Stevie Wonder's wife?"  And we all look at each other like, what the heck? And then after the slight pause, he says, "Well neither has he!"  And it was pretty darn hilarious, mostly because we didn't ever see it coming from this guy.

We've had to get up at like 5:00-5:30 each of the last three days, so I'm kinda pretty exhausted right now.  Hoping we can get a good rest tonight.  

We also had a baptism in our district this past weekend!  One of the sister's investigators, J., got baptized yesterday morning.  That was an awesome spiritual experience.  It's always awesome watching that act of someone entering that covenant with God.  I've been blessed on my mission witnessing people make that covenant. 

Sounds like the Christmas season is going well for you. But that's about all the time I have for this week.  Hope you all have a great week!

-Elder Hadfield

From Jake's companion, Elder Blau:
The other big news that I have is that Elder Hadfield and I did a Marathon on Piotrkowska. 26.2 miles. That ended up being 12 laps for the part that has most people. We went from 11 until like 8:30 at night. It was pretty intense. Elder Kapela was there for a bit over half of it. It hurt pretty bad by the end. The next day, we woke up and it was really fun trying to walk around for the rest of the day. I think that it was worth it for the story though. Not too many people can say that they did a marathon on their mission. hahaha

Sunset at 3 pm

Elder Hadfield

After the marathon

Oporow Castle Tour